Barack Obama Needs a Geography Lesson

Today, President Obama once again called for a “contiguous” Palestinian state.

During a press conference following their meeting President Obama reaffirmed his administration’s belief that the “Palestinians deserve an end to occupation and the indignities that come with it,” through an “independent, viable and contiguous Palestinian state as the homeland of the Palestinian people alongside the Jewish state of Israel.”

Question: How will that work?

The orange parts are the Palestinian areas. The big green part is Israel, “big” being a very relative term here. The entire area is tiny by American standards.

Both Israel and a future Palestinian state cannot be contiguous at the same time, unless:

A. Either the West Bank or Gaza are ceded to Israel, thus confining the Palestinian state to the area not ceded.

B. Israel itself becomes the Palestinian state, so the entire area becomes one larger Palestinian state.

At this point we can rule out B, because Obama did call for Israel to continue to exist as a Jewish state. No one is contemplating A that I’m aware of.

There is a third possibility: The Palestinian state becomes contiguous at the expense of bisecting Israel. Obama didn’t explicitly rule that out in his comments.

In the past, Obama has called for Israel to retreat back to its 1967 borders. But Israel would have to go back to something like the 1947 mandate borders to get the Palestinians into a contiguous state. Like this.

Is this what Obama has in mind? Or does he just not know what he’s talking about?

Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, was a founding blogger and producer at Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

This is probably directed at Israel's recent decision to start construction in the "E1" area of east Jerusalem. E1 lies between the Old City and the Israeli suburb of Ma'ale Adumim; its development will close the gap between them.

It has been claimed (and repeated by the misinformed) that this would 'bisect' the West Bank, and end contiguity between the areas north and south of Jerusalem. In fact there is a large corridor of Palestinian-controlled territory between Ma'ale Adumim and the Jordan River, so the claim is baseless.

Before AIPAC, Obama repeated what he said in his Thursday speech: he called for a “sovereign and contiguous state” for the “Palestinians.” Since he is calling for this state to be established in Gaza and the West Bank, to achieve “contiguity” it is necessary that Israel be bisected—that land which was not under the rule of either Egypt or Jordan prior to the 1967 war be handed over to hostile “Palestinians.” Obama is in effect demanding that Israel tacitly cede any claim to sovereignty—that it admit it has no permanent claim to any of the land it held prior to the Six-Day War—and that Arab demands for a “contiguous” state trump Israel’s right to contiguity.

By the way, the United States is not a “contiguous state.” There is no contiguity between the main 48 states and either Alaska or Hawaii.

Obama is brutally ignorant of the subjects of geography, history (especially US history), math, and science. His vocabulary is infantile for a so-called "professor". He learned no foreign languages. What was the question again?

I've never seen a hint of intellectual curiosity in this man. I think he probably went through school learning the bare minimum needed to move on to the next level, helped by the supporters he's always had. Why can't we see his grades? I think this is the most blatant failure of the MSM - inexcusable and unforgivable. He doesn't refrain from participating in the government he's supposed to be leading because he's laid-back or cool or too above it all to be bothered, but because he simply doesn't understand the policy issues enough to discuss them with people who do. He's less than a con artist, he's a vacuous empty shell.

this is a man who thinks that hawaii is part of asia, the falklands are the maldives and that the US has 57 states. i'm pretty certain that "doesn't know what he is talking about" is the correct answer.